[Hong Kong, 10 November 2011] The Hong Kong Rugby Football Union (HKRFU) today announced a 12-man squad and management team for the India Sevens – the third leg of the HSBC Asian Sevens Series – which will be held on 19th-20th November, 2011, in Goa, India.

Simon Leung, who has captained the national XVs team, will take up a new challenging role as captain of the squad for the first time in India.

Having a 13-man rugby sevens squad in Australia for two international tournaments, Hong Kong national coach Dai Rees commented on the selection of the India Sevens squad, saying, “We have carefully selected two squads and hopefully we will have a good balance of players for both tours. There is a good mix of experienced sevens players like captain Simon Leung, Tsang Hing-hung and Ed Haynes, with a few newcomers who have stepped up from the national U20s, such as Joshua Peters and Cado Lee.”

Senior coach Alex Gibbs has high expectations for the squad, commenting, “Many new players have come in this season and have bolstered our national sevens squad so it is great to be sending two teams away at the same time. Some of these newcomers have the opportunity to play for Hong Kong for the first time in India, which puts a lot of responsibility on them. Over the past two years we have solidified our position in the top two in Asia, so expectations are high.”

Gibbs continued, “It is a new country for us to play rugby in, a unique environment, and I have no doubt we will face some decent competition. However, I am excited to see how we go in India with the combination of experience, youth and established XVs players who are relatively new to the sevens environment.”

Squad: Simon Leung, captain (HKCC), Ally McClay (Valley), Pale Tauti (DeA), Tsang Hing-hung (DeA), Ben Ho (DeA), Charles Cheung (DeA), Joshua Peters (Valley), Cado Lee (Kowloon), Edward Haynes (HKCC), Mike McKee (HKFC), Sebastian Alfonsi (DeA), and Adam Raby (HKFC)

Management: Alex Gibbs – senior coach, Kane Jury – coach, Simon Pang – team manager, Wong Tsz-kit – strength & conditioning coach, and David Garrick – physiotherapist

This article was posted on 17-Nov-2011, 17:11 by Hugh Barrow.